Abstract:

R. Kipling’s books of stories “Puck of Pook’s Hill” and “Rewards and Fairies” are sometimes called “historical fantasy”; it is the series of short stories that are set in various periods of the English history. The magic creature — Puck, the inhabitant of the Hills — introduces two children, Dan and Una, who spend summer in Sussex, to the history of their “small motherland”, and besides, to a handful of important historical personages and events that became crucial for the shaping of the nation in general, such as Christianization of Britain, Norman conquer, Magna Charta, geographical discoveries, etc. Magic elements are included into the stories of the real past; magic places and magic creatures existing in England are almost doubtless, because we can see magic as something really and effectively acting even in the beginning of the 20th century. Otherwise speaking, it is necessary to know and to accept both the real, factual English history and the mythological one to really learn the past and the present of the country — literally, to be an English-man. Everything that surrounds children takes part in the narrative and has a deep personal meaning to the characters. Dan and Una symbolically “seize” the land, and forever on their actual heritage is the historical and cultural one.